Burnout is usually described as exhaustion, which is why it is so often missed. In practice it tends to show up first as a narrowing of judgement.

Work that used to take an hour takes three. Decisions that were easy get deferred. The tiredness comes later, and by then it has already been expensive.

The early signs are behavioural

Watch for the meetings you stop preparing for, the messages you leave unread because opening them costs something, and the growing gap between how long you think a task will take and how long it does. These are measurable, and they move well before anyone feels dramatic about it.

“I did not notice until I reread something I had written and could not follow my own argument.”

Elliot Nwachukwu

If several of these are true at once, the answer is rarely a holiday. It is usually a conversation about what is on your plate and what comes off it.